The Search Engine Update – Number 196 – May 3, 2005

In This Issue

SES London & SEW Forums Live Atlanta

On Wednesday, our Search Engine Strategies search marketing conference begins in Toronto. If you’re one of those last-minute types, don’t worry — you can still register for the show. More information is at the SES Toronto site.

Looking ahead, SES London is just a month away, arriving in the city June 1-2. As with our US shows, the London event will feature speakers from major search engines, along with experts on search marketing. Unlike the US shows, there’s a special emphasis on UK and European search marketing issues. More information can be found at the SES London 2005 web site.

After London, SES returns to the US, coming to San Jose in August. Stockholm follows in October, and the tour for the year ends in Chicago in December. Links to sites about those shows can be found via our Search Engine Strategies site.

SEW Forums editor Elisabeth Osmeloski will be moderating the event, which kicks off with a panel on the latest trends, hot topics and issues in today’s SEM marketplace.

After the panel, there will be organized roundtable topics with discussion leaders to get into specific tactics and SEM strategies. In “speed dating” style, attendees will have a chance to move onto another topic they’ve indicated interest in during the registration process.

Checking my Gmail account today, I discovered that I’m apparently now one of the few with access to the new Gmail “web clips” feed reading feature I mentioned earlier. In this post, how it works plus Google’s hidden feeds for Google News.

Ask Jeeves denies various accusations about software it distributes — that it assists other programs to install themselves unbeknownst to users, that it’s tagged as spyware by Microsoft’s anti-spyware tool and that it generats log referral spam. Ask Jeeves Accused Of Pushing Spyware on the blog has background of the most recent accusations, from anti-spyware writer Ben Edelman.

Links to the week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: AdWords Allows Site Specific Targeting – The Future: Stuff I’ve Seen – Identifying SEO Experts – Quick Keyword Suggestion Tool – What Is the Strategy for Groupings In AdWords? – New ‘Link Police’ in Google Algorithm? and more.

Online ad spending figures for all of 2004 were recently released by the IAB. What do they show specifically for search? Up, up, up, no matter how you want to slice it, though mixing in spending on contextual ads doesn’t give a completely clear figure. A summary in this post.

An extended post for Search Engine Watch members looks in depth at the giant flaw with report, the failure to break out contextual ads from search. They aren’t the same as search, as I explain — and counting them as search pollutes the data. I also look at how the recent Google CPM pricing for contextual ads is finally generating more awareness that contextual isn’t search, as well as what I’ve written before, that Google and Yahoo aren’t tech companies, aren’t search companies but are ad or media companies.

The new Yahoo News leaves beta after only two weeks. Here’s our review of what’s changes are in it, including the ability to pick your own sources in various categories. Yahoo News also provides a tour of the new services and features here.

Marketers using Google AdWords, rejoice! For ages, many of you have wanted the ability to pick and choose exactly where your ads would show up in Google AdSense contextual network. Now you’re getting it. More in this post. See also Yahoo To Do Images In Contextual Ads, Too.

Last week, AOL became the largest online service to offer the comparatively new pay-per-call format to search advertisers. Pay-per-call is rapidly gaining traction among search marketers, especially those targeting a local audience, and if you’re not familiar with the format, it’s worth a look.

The longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members provides detailed instructions for enrolling in Ingenio’s pay-per-call program, including ad guidelines, how to determine competitors’ bids and the performance reporting provided by the company.

With Google having released its new Google My Search History feature yesterday, I wanted to spin back around and look at where we stand in terms of search history offerings across a number of major search engines. I’ve done so in chart format in this post. NOTE: Chart doesn’t reflect Yahoo’s launch that happened after this was written.

I thought I would toss out another web-based search history resource called Filangy. Unfortunately, it’s a limited beta and you’ll need (at least for now) to sign-up to get a login. More about the service in this article. Also see, Do You Want to Demo Filangy?

Trust or Consequence: How Failure to Disclose Ad Relationships Threatens to Burst the Search Bubble is the name of free one day conference being backed by Consumer Reports WebWatch on June 9 in Berkeley, California. It aims to explore in an open forum format if better paid ad disclosures on search engines are needed to protect those seeking general and health-related information. There’s an impressive list of invited and confirmed speakers, so it should be a good event. Wish I could have made it myself, but my schedule didn’t allow for making the trip!

How are ads ranked at Google? Traditionally, it has been the ad’s clickthrough rate (CTR) times its cost per click (CPC). Those with the highest resulting score came first. But Google Slightly Changes AdWords Ranking Algorithm from Search Engine Roundtable summarizes a WebmasterWorld thread about a relatively new change (and pretty much unannounced change). The clickthrough rate since January involves all the words of your ad copy, instead of solely being tied to the clickthrough rate of the particular word your ad is showing for. Changes in Google AdWords Ad Rankings Formula at WebmasterWorld has more.

Spotted via Google Blogoscoped, Xtra-Google offers what Google itself should — an easy way to access Google’s many specialty services and a few it doesn’t even really offer (such as MP3 search) via a single page.

In Online ad sellers think local, News.com revisits why search engines are interested in developing local search. It’s a largely untapped vein of small businesses they hope to mine. It touches on things we’ve heard before, such the difficulty in getting small businesses going online, plus looks briefly at how online players are trying to convince them to make the leap.

SBC’s SMARTPages and YellowPages.com are announcing flat-rate pricing packages hoping to get more local customers advertising online. The program will be run by TrafficLeader, which will buy terms for advertisers and guarantee a certain number of clicks a month. More in this news release and this ClickZ story

The folks over at Pandia have alerted us to a new benchmark study from the University of Wisconsin’s E-Business Consortium that looks at 12 desktop search tools. The 15 page report: Benchmark Study of Desktop Search Tools, is available in full text as a PDF file. Overall, Copernic Desktop Search gets the top ranking. At number two is Yahoo Desktop Search. Rounding out the top three is Wizetech Archivarius 3000, from a Canadian-based Wizetech Software.

The Register is mildly up in arms that Google failed to do a special logo for England’s national day, St. George’s Day, last month. Google says it needs to rotate the logo love around. More in this post.

Several new video content sources have been added to Google Video, including CNN, Fox News, Discovery Channel, TLC, and others. It’s worth mentioning that Blinkx.TV provides searchable access to content from some of the same sources including the Discovery Channel, Fox News, and CNN. Unlike Google Video, Blinkx.TV also provides the option to limit by source and VIEW the full motion video on your computer.

Earlier this month, I pointed out an article about local search and the merchant review systems often offered in them. Will we see these abused or gamed? Yahoo Local Reviews Biased has Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable doing exactly that, to give his company a positive review, in a test at how the system works. Barry then immediately turned himself in to Yahoo, and to its credit, the review was promptly removed. But down the line, will see campaigns to skew reviews that aren’t easily spotted?

While Apple’s touting its bundled desktop search as a leading feature of its new OS, Microsoft is downplaying the idea that many once had that desktop search would be a killer component of its next-generation Windows operating system, Longhorn. Will Longhorn Try to Rival Google? from the IDG news service write that Longhorn will instead aim to provide visualization and tagging tools to help people better organize information. While I’ve been dubious about tagging for web wide search, I’m a huge fan when it comes to desktop matters. My Photo Search: Google Picasa 2 Vs. Adobe Photoshop Album 2 looks at that in more depth.

Over the weekend, Gigablast increased their total page count about 4 million pages from 1.5 billion pages to 1.504 billion pages. I also noticed that Gigablast now provides access to the Open Directory (DMOZ) database.

How “search” is redefining the Web and our lives from the Seattle Times has a nice look at how search engines developed into part of our everyday lives. Some history, observations and a look forward on how they might get even more personal with us.

Search Advertising and Conversion Lag Times from Fredrick Marckini at ClickZ looks at how a halted campaign still kept racking up conversions — and why it’s crucial to understand the lag time involved in a buying cycle, to better understand how well a campaign is working.

Dex Media, the official provider of yellow and white page directories for Qwest Communications in 14 states, is announcing a deal with Yahoo that will make local content/listings from Dex Media advertisers available at Yahoo Yellow Pages and at Yahoo Local. More in this post.

Paul Brody, director of community products at Yahoo, tells the IDG News Service that new features are in the works for Yahoo 360, Yahoo’s recently released (a limited beta) social networking/info sharing tool. For example, 360 users will be able to share RSS feeds from disparate sources and material (photos, music, etc.) from non-Yahoo applications. Brody tells IDG that 360 will become widely available in the next few weeks. Also, “localized” versions of Yahoo 360 in some European and Asian countries are coming soon. More in the article: Yahoo Blogging Service Boosts Content.

The new and impressive job listings metasearch database, Indeed.com and Clusty, the metasearch engine offering dynamic clustering of results from Vivisimo that debuted last September, have gotten together to offer Jobs.clusty.com. It allows the searcher to dynamically cluster job search results from Indeed.com several different ways. More in this post.

Picsearch, the Stockholm-based provider of image search results to several engines including Ask Jeeves and MSN Search have just announced a deal with Lycos to include Picsearch image results on Lycos properties in the U.S. Image search at Lycos is found under their multimedia search tab.

If you’ve been wanting an option to keyword search your Gmail using Google’s desktop search tool, your wait is over. A 105K plug-in was made available late last week on the GDS site called, Larry’s Gmail Indexer (beta). It uses GMail’s POP access feature to make your Gmail indexable. It’s developer, Larry Gadea has more info and links to other GDS plug-ins on his site.

I’m a frequent user of AllMusic.com, a wonderful specialized database full of musician bios, track listings and much more. One feature (similar services are available at ITunes and elsewhere) is the ability to browse/search for music by mood, genre, theme, instrument, etc. In other words metadata has been entered for each song title. Now, word of a specific research project at Sun Microsystems that makes song recommendations by actually analyzing the audio. It’s called “Search Inside the Music.”

Yahoo to Test Search-Based Banner Ads from eWeek isn’t about Yahoo suddenly bringing back the the keyword-linked banner ads that ran for years on its site. Instead, it’s Yahoo saying going to try contextual NON-SEARCH ads that have images, rather than text.

Europe rallies against Google library from AFP notes that 19 major European libraries are backing a plan to put European books online, in reaction to Google’s project to digitize books. The move, said the president of France’s national library, is to prevent “the risk of a crushing American domination in the definition of how future generations conceive the world.” More in this post.

In Missions and Visions, John Battelle talks with Jeff Weiner, who I’ve introduced at conferences in the past as Yahoo’s search czar, about Yahoo Search’s vision and mission statements. In this post, comparing those statements and Google’s statement to actual actions.

I’ve blogged before about new domains that Google has registered, such as GoogleVillage.com. But in my regular monitoring, here are a few new Googleish domains registered by those outside the Googleplex, including some who seem like they’d never want to step inside of it. More in this post.

Barry Fox’s article, Google searches for quality not quantity, at New Scientist discusses a recently published Google patent application (not an awarded patent, yet) about concepts that Google News is possibly using in its algorithm. But the patent application was filed with the USPTO about 18 months ago, on September 16, 2003 to be precise. This means that it’s very likely that one/some/many/all or none of the concepts are already being utilized in the Google News algorithm. More in this post.

Amazon.com reported their Q1 earnings yesterday. This IHT has details. If you’re wondering if any tidbits about A9 were revealed, this Forbes article notes that Amazon.com spent $92 million (a 59% increase from Q1 2004) on technology. This number includes both A9 and other Amazon.com technology development. Amazon’s CFO, Tom Szkutak, added that the company is continuing to hire programmers at A9 and for other Amazon.com web services.

About a week ago, Danny posted about a new Google.org site serving as a placeholder for Google’s “coming soon” philanthropic efforts. Today’s USA Today article: Google foundation may invest in for-profit firms, has info about possible plans for how the Google Foundation will operate. Google’s Global VP of Sales, Sheryl Sandberg, told the USA Today, “We want to do something that is innovative.” What does that exactly mean? Google is considering investing in, “for-profit firms that also pursue worthy causes” opposed to only giving donations to non-profits. The article goes on to say that Google is considering many options including a more traditional approach. Sandberg also told the paper that Google is continuing to interview executive director candidates to lead their philanthropic efforts. By the way, I did a quick search of the California Charitable Organization database hoping to learn more about the Google Foundation but came up empty handed.

Google is interviewing a former U.S. State Department employee, Dan Senor, to head Google’s marketing team. Yahoo has hired Shawn Hardin as vice-president of content development. Blinkx, the provider of both contextual search and video search technology, has hired Jonathan Gregg as Vice President, Business Development for the U.S. Some additional details in this post.

Fathom that: Ask Jeeves veteran gets successful search result from the San Francisco Business Times profiles search firm Fathom Online and worth a read for those who need a refresher on how search marketing companies are growing as investment and acquisition targets. More on Fathom and two other companies in this post.

Newspapers Find National Ads a Tough Sell is an interesting look from the New York Times on how US national advertisers are apparently pulling away from nationally distributed newspapers. Why? One reason seems to be that if they want to reach nationally, they do so and in a more targeted way via search engines. But local newspapers seemed to be doing much better, given that they continue to provide a targeted audience, in a geographic sense.

According to the Netimperative, Yahoo Mobile services will soon come “pre-loaded” on several models of Nokia Smartphones. This means new Smartphone users are likely to first interact with Yahoo’s mobile services before possibly encountering services from other mobile search providers. In other words, get to the new user as soon as they turn on their phone for the first time. Remember, changing user behavior is a challenge! Nokia will also allow current owners of several models of Smartphones to download the Yahoo suite of services. Additional details in this news release.

An article on AdAge.com (free, registration req.): Online Yellow Pages Users Buy Quicker And Spend More, discusses the findings of a new ComScore Networks study that shows consumers who search using Internet yellow page services are more “likely” to buy that those who searching using local search services like Google Local and Yahoo Local. Note: If you don’t have an AdAge.com login, a copy of the article is available (PDF) on the Yellow Pages Association web site. Media Post and Clickz also have stories about the study.

Before search forums, it was mailing lists that search marketers used to talk with each other. In particular, I-Search was a venerable institution that sadly died as forums finally overtook it. But last year, the last I-Search moderator Andrew Goodman decided to give mailing lists another go. SEM 2.0 was launched. It’s built up steam since then and worth a subscription. It won’t replace forums for many people. However, the list has shown that discussions via your inbox can still thrive.

Marketers using Google AdWords, rejoice! For ages, many of you have wanted the ability to pick and choose exactly where your ads would show up in Google AdSense contextual network. Now you’re getting it. More in this post. See also

New travel search engine Dohop allows you to find schedule and fares for more 300 European destinations. You’ll be searching the databases of more than 30 European airlines including both legacy carriers (Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways) as well as low-cost carriers (Ryan Air, Easy Jet, and SkyEurope). You’ll also notice tabs on the home page to access hotel rates and car rental prices. However, these services aren’t working. I was only able to find links to various hotel aggregator sites and car rental companies. Other travel search tools focusing on European travel include OpenJet.com and AppleFares.com.

How expert is your search expert? Search expert Shari Thurow aims to help you figure that out in Identifying SEO Experts, Part 1: Beginners at ClickZ, the first of a three part series. What’s a beginner — or perhaps better, someone with the foundations of being an expert? Try her mom test. If they can write a good essay that integrates 10 key terms, they’ve got the makings of being an expert.

Times might be rosy for the likes of Google and Yahoo, revenue-wise — but LookSmart’s having a tough time. Investors Turn Cold Shoulder to LookSmart from ClickZ notes that the company’s stock has been under the $1 per share mark for more than 30 days. If shares don’t trade for above that at least 10 of the next 180 days, he company will be delisted. Shares are at $0.80, when I looked today.

Mod_rewrite is a powerful tool for making dynamic pages seem like static ones to search engines. In the Mod Rewrite Tips and Tricks thread at our Search Engine Watch Forums, member seomike kicks things off by providing code and tips to make the dynamic-to-static change, to fix misspellings and name changes in URLs and to normalize URLs. Don’t forget, there are also a variety of other good threads for those with dynamic site issues in the forums. Browse though the others within the active Dynamic Web Site Issues section of the forums.

The 2005 Search Engine Meeting took place in Boston on April 11-12 and I’ve just noticed that most of the presentations from the meeting are now available online. Plenty of interesting reading from many big names in the industry. Links to a few of the presentations are listed below. Links to all of presentations can be found here. Short of time? Search Engine Meeting Low-Down (Boston) from the Search-Science blog from Xan Porter is a nice read that hits the highlights of presentations.

In case you haven’t heard, Google’s Q1 earnings were released yesterday and like Yahoo, they were even better than what analysts were expecting. As I post this item shares of GOOG are at an all-time high, up almost $15 at $219.20.

Building and Managing an SEM Campaign, Portfolio Style from Kevin Lee at ClickZ looks at why you might treat the terms you’re after as a “portfolio” of terms that all help average each other out, in the end. Some may be big winners; you might have some losers, but life is easier without having to get to granular. Sound great? Kevin goes through some questions to ask to decide if it’s suitable to you.

We’ve written before of how the search engines want to tap into the local market, those small businesses that aren’t even online. It’s a big challenge that I just had illustrated for me first hand when a fencing contractor stopped by.

I’ve posted new search engine popularity statistics from NetRatings for March 2005, and you can now view a line chart showing the past three months that underscore how little has shifted in the search landscape. It’s always good to remember with these type of figures that trends typically don’t emerge until several months have gone by. Case in point was all the hoopla last month, when MSN had a small 1.4 share rise from 12.8 percent in January to 14.2 percent in February. More in this post.

Just checked the weather at AccuWeather? Google Local is now over there, in the company’s first outsourcing of Google Local to a partner. For example, here’s the local forecast page for Newport Beach, California. Look in the upper-right hand corner, and you’ll see the ability to do a local business search now powered by Google. So go find that local pizza place (I like Gina’s), get a slice and sit in the sun.

New features just added to the Google Advertising Professionals Program mean you can get promotional credits, company-wide qualification and your own professional status page hosted by Google. More in this post.

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